


Afterimages Burned Into Synthetic Retinas

by Drake



Category: Deus Ex - Fandom, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Spoilers, sidequest character death (i've been informed that a pacifist adam can't save him so...he died)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-12 17:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7942330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drake/pseuds/Drake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Prague, after London, Adam Jensen is...not quite sure he's alright. A nightmare begins to make connections that, once recognized, have to be chased to their ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Adam Jensen was no stranger to nightmares.

Even before the mess that was Prague, his waking life held plenty of material for his subconscious imagination to go wild. His usual stalwart companions were explosions, searing pain, and the inability to breathe. In sleep, his lungs forgot they were no longer organic, and vividly recalled choking on smoke and flames and the acrid stench of _gunpowder-blood-charred skin-acid-death-death-death._ They defied the thought that his new lungs could filter any of those out, that he could stand in a room full of the most poisonous gas and feel as if he were at the height of a mountain, breathing air as crisp as frost.

Sometimes he tangled with augs that would no longer obey him, painted stark with the memory of one who begged for help even as his own hand pulled the trigger to end himself. Pictures of a crowded street washed in rain, a Typhoon - that he’d never activated, never even loaded – unleashed upon unarmored, defenseless _innocents_ while all he could do was watch _._ More helpless than he’d been during surgery, a slave to the very machines that kept him alive.

This, though, _this_ was new.

Murmurs. Whispered promises. Words that would raise goosebumps, if he still had flesh capable of responding. _I can make you human again. You need not die a machine._ And wasn’t that fucking hilarious? Where he’d spent so many nights in horror of what he’d become, of losing his skin and organs, now he feared the opposite. Feared being _stripped of his parts_ , parts that made him a new whole, one he’d slowly learned to live with – if haltingly. Worse still, at the hands of another Aug, one whose loss of control was so much more insidious than the first, one who didn’t even realize she wasn’t herself anymore.

What was he more afraid of? Dying? Or his lethality – one that he’d worked so hard to curb – being used without his will?

As if that even needed an answer.

Just as TITAN-shielded arms grabbed him by the throat, as dust-filled smoke cascaded into his _organic ~~alloy~~ organic_ lungs, as she _ripped_ his _arm_ from its wiring, sparks erupting from his shoulder, as his other arm tried to deploy a nanoblade on its own to defend himself, as he _choked on his own blood_ , _drowned in an ocean –_

Adam startled awake, all of his augs whirring up in a mechanized adrenaline response to _danger-fear-danger_ , and he very nearly Icarus dashed through his window, catching himself at the last moment and inhaling deep, honing in to the sound of alloy lungs opening valves to ground himself. He dropped back to the pillows, suddenly exhausted, a cold hand raking over his face.

“HUD on.”

_4:27 AM._

No point trying to go back to sleep.

He stood up fluidly, the balls of his feet tapping the floor soundlessly, the picture of grace and control, and headed toward the shower. He checked, tested, rolling his arms, popping weapons – TESLA, PEPS, non-lethal Typhoon, nanoblade, remote-hack – just to make sure each listened. They did, feeling as ingrained a part of him as his organics.

In the shower, forehead pressed against cold tile as hot water poured over his shoulders – he didn’t quite enjoy a cold shower like he used to, not after Panchaea – he double-checked his aug settings, made sure the lethal ones weren’t activated. Which was really just the nanoblade launcher – he made certain that he never carried lethal Typhoon ammo, only gas pellets. He itched suddenly for the option to disable his augs again, but that only brought up memories of yet another person he couldn’t save. Another person he’d promised to protect. Memories of another young, ruined body, the weight of his death placed heavy on Adam’s shoulders like the world’s worst medal.

He stepped out of the shower, his muscles finally loosened by the incessant thump of warmth forcing them to give up their tension. Padding silently to the kitchen – old habits die hard, and he’d spent the better part of the past few days a ghost – he placed a call to Alex’s InfoLink. While he waited for her to respond, he pulled a jug of milk from the fridge.

“Adam?” The voice was scratchy from an evening’s disuse, but the question was laced tight with concern and alertness, ready to respond at an instant.

“Sorry for the early call, Alex. Can you do some digging for me?” He sat at the dimly lit island in the center of the kitchen, reaching for a box of cereal and a bowl.

“This better be more than you wanting a lovebird’s address,” she groused, and Adam quirked an eyebrow at that – he carefully steered clear of romantic involvement after the mess that had been Meagan.

“I need to know if Orlov’s work at Tai Yong Medical had anything to do with Cipra's neural augments.” Connections had sprung unbidden from his nightmare, _Daria-Alaska-Tai Yong-Orlov’s keycard-Cipra-personality enhancement-override codes-coma._ Before Prauge, he’d have said there was no way an aug could be installed and hidden from him. Now, he was not so sure.

“You think Orlov might have given you the same chip Daria had?” Alex was good at following the jumps Adam made, and sometimes he wondered if he should worry about that.

“I’m not sure. But with Koller dead, I don’t have another mechanic that I trust.” He didn’t mention that, unless Koller had turned on him too, he likely would have found it. Maybe it hadn’t heated his core, maybe Koller had panicked at the thought of killing Jensen, maybe the meltdown had triggered before he could check out Adam’s neural wiring. A million reasons he could have missed it (if it was even there). Only one reason that he would have purposefully not seen it.

Didn’t matter anymore.

“I’ll see if I can get Janus on it. I’ll call you when we find something.” She hung up, her avatar disappearing from his HUD.

Adam was left alone, eating cereal in the predawn grey as light slowly returned to the ravaged city outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I lived even a day in the life of Adam, I'd probably have nightmares for the rest of my life. After Mankind Divided, I felt like exploring what those nightmares might be like. I'm not sure if this'll go anywhere, but let me know if you'd like it to! 
> 
> Further, this is my first work with Deus Ex, so let me know if I got some info/characterization horribly wrong!
> 
> Edit: I realized I'd been spelling Cipra wrong. Also...on my second playthrough I re-read an email from Cipra to Orlov, so a line has been changed to stay consistent with the fact that Adam does actually read the emails he's hacked into - obviously Cipra did know Orlov, the question now is how well/how closely they worked together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For lack of a mission, Adam wanders. It's not until too late that he finds himself in front of Koller's bookstore, and an unwanted visitor finds him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you KawaiiBooker and Black for convincing me that this was a fic worth expanding on! <3

 

For lack of anything mission critical – to TF29 _or_ the Juggernaut Collective – Adam was walking the streets of Prague, looking for any Augs who made it through the nights of martial law and perhaps needed a hand. He had a couple dozen vials of neuropozyne – pilfered from places that held only naturals, from Tai Yong’s vault, from the TF29 infirmary (hey, they were technically his prescriptions, it wasn’t stealing), and from Koller’s dungeon. After Koller didn’t need them anymore.

 _When augmented people ask for help, I help them. I continue to help Radich._ An echo of a kindness he couldn’t extend in return, to the person that had more-or-less singlehandedly put him back in shape.

So why not? He figured any Augs that _had_ made it through the night had been displaced, perhaps had their homes ransacked, or lost their belongings if they were homeless. There were probably more than a few who had run out of Neuropozyne and needed more. Those in Golem City needed it most, but he was probably not very welcome there, nor could he find a way to get there without going through Chikane. And TF29.

Where he was most decidedly Not Going. Delara had sent him an email to the tune of “please come in so I can pick your brain about whether London emotionally traumatized you to the point of non-functioning” which he had no intent of answering. He had never liked the shrink, never opened up to her. He had only taken her request to find Vince because another agent may have been in trouble. She seemed to think it was because they were friends. They weren’t. And if she wanted to kick him off duty, all she had to do was read his file – as she seemed fond of doing – and make up her own conclusion for why he wasn’t fit.

Miller was meeting with Manderely for the foreseeable future, so Adam decided he wouldn’t go back to the base until Miller was back for a debrief, or until another bomb blew up in his face. Which, going by his luck these past few years, was actually quite likely. Maybe he did have a visit to TF29 in his future.

He was walking towards the metro when a man called out to him. “Hey you! Go away! There’s nothing wrong with me.” Despite the man’s fevered look, his eyes were glazed and his hands were shaking. His mismatched augmented legs jerked unnaturally – even for machines – and Adam paused. “What are you looking at? Don’t answer that! It was a rhetorical question!”

Adam quirked an eyebrow, pulled a vial of Neuropozyne out of his pocket, and tossed it at the man chest, where it bounced and landed in the folds of his jacket. He lost all interest in Adam immediately, and dug frantically for the vial, immediately taking a dose. Adam walked off before he could say anything. At the steps to the metro, he glanced at his ‘options’: the heavily guarded, fenced off (with barbed wire, for extra intimidation bullshit) Augs line, or the wide open and well-lit Naturals line. He’d yet to find a police officer who would refuse his permit, so he walked down the Naturals line just because he could. The cop watching the line must have recognized him, because even though he got a “wrong fuckin’ line!” shouted at him, they didn’t stop him from going through. Or else all the guns and posturing were just for show. He had a feeling that they would do far worse to an Aug without a permit like his. They almost tried, with him, a few times. They generally thought better of it before he made them regret it. With a nice headbutt to those open-visored helmets.

Without realizing it, he had ended up in the Prekazka district. Walking down the gate to the burned-out bookstore, still smoldering inside and crackling with embers that had yet to die, dancing among thousands of torn up paper books. He wasn’t sure what brought him here, since he’d only ever seen Naturals standing in this courtyard after Koller’s death.

It had happened while he’d been poisoned, laying in the snow for hours, too far and too late to do anything. He’d woken up to a missed call from Koller, a message left that had just said “they’re coming for me and I can’t hide –“.

He’d slammed a fist into the cliff face, snarling in the freezing air. He may not have been able to go and save him, but he could’ve done something – could’ve guided him to safety, could’ve gotten Alex to help him, could’ve assured him everything would be fine and showed Koller how to get to his apartment, could’ve could’ve could’ve. But he’d been out, his Sentinel RX doing its best to filter out the Orchid, leaving Koller on his own. To face his death alone.

“You are an interesting man, Agent Jensen.”

Adam whirled, his right hand pulling back into a fist as his knuckles lifted and crackled with electricity. The only thing that could have allowed someone to sneak up on him was – he glanced down and confirmed – leg silencers on augmented legs. As he looked back up, he recognized the yellow hoodie the individual was wearing. This did not, in fact, reassure him. His feet spread wider, and his knees bent subtly, a subconscious preparation for a fight.

The individual, Ivan Berk, the Ruzicka bomber – not officially, but it would take a hell of a lot of evidence to dissuade Adam from the connections he had made – did not seem perturbed by Adam's response, lightly bouncing on his augmented sprinter legs. “You refuse to kill, yet you won't protect those who stick their necks out for you.” He was looking at the bookstore, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, and the smile he flashed Adam was far from kind, all teeth.

Adam was glad to have a reason to not look at the boarded up, smoldering bookstore any longer. “That’s rich, coming from someone who would be dead if I did differently,” he growled, TESLA still active and popping in the otherwise quiet air, the sounds of the city muffled by the cloudy skies and the courtyard walls.

“You can put that away. I'm not here to fight,” Ivan said, pulling his hands out of his pockets and holding them up in what looked like surrender, the metal joints glinting in the indirect light.

“You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe you,” Adam groused, activating Smart Vision to double check that Ivan had no other weapons on him. Beyond the obvious ones. If anyone knew about how dangerous and deadly augs could be without any other weapons, it would be Adam. Miller had been on the right track in Dubai, where he'd asked if Adam was even bringing any guns – they were great, particularly Adam's personal tranquilizer rifle, but unnecessary.

Ivan was weaponless, though. His fingers waggled, as if taunting, and he smirked. “Actually, I tracked you down because I wanted to thank you.”  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...know Nothing about ivan. I know he smirks whenever he blows something up, he has a sister, and he worships Viktor. So he seemed like the kind of terrorist that's smirky and takes nothing seriously. And Adam is 100% absolutely Not About That Shit. Let me know if I'm missing something critical to him, haha!
> 
> But what is he thanking Adam for? S;)
> 
>  
> 
> I have also discovered that on my second playthrough (foxiest+pacifist), Koller didn't die. :c so I have put adam through suffering for nothing, haha. It works better in this story without him, since he'd have access to a lot of answers otherwise, but still.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ivan conversation.

“For what?” It's somewhat of a growl. Hackles still up, eyes focusing crystal-sharp on Ivan, the rest of the world falling away. Radar watching everything, including the terrorist in front of him.

 

Ivan shrugs, as if it should be obvious. “And here I thought you had a good memory. Beyond the reason any halfbrain could guess, I wanted to thank you for sparing Viktor.” He looks away from Adam, hands curled into fists in his hoodie. “He may have used me, twisted me to his own ends, but. He's still one of us. His reasons, I think, may not have been so far from yours.”

 

Adam's expression turns to a snarl. Marchenko had said something similar. How they were both puppets, but at least Viktor could see the strings. Adam had cast it aside, considering he'd had to avoid the red laser cannon in the man's arm.

 

“And, of course, for stopping those cops in Golem.” The smirk turns back to him, and Adam grits his teeth. He remembers watching. Remembers seeing the kid in the hoodie, with his legs linked together by chain, dragged by cops and slammed to the ground. Tased, beaten, and still he reached out, fingers curling before he could be struck again. Reaching for help.

 

So Adam helped. Appeared in the middle of the fight (could a one-sided beat-down be considered a fight?) and 'stopped' the cops. Really, he sent some of them to the hospital so they'd be more engaged with that than returning to torture the Golem city exiles. A short-term solution to a long-term disease. They'd come back, angrier than before, with more gear and armor and weapons. But, he saved Ivan – an ironic taunt, if he ever saw one. “Sometimes I'm not sure I should have.”

 

It's not true. He could never stomach police brutality. Ever since they ordered him to shoot a kid for no discernible reason (other than the fact that he was an aug), he refused to stand for corruption, for police who thought they could do whatever they wanted because they were the face of the law. For a breach in protect and serve. It didn't matter who the victim was. Adam stopped being a cop when he learned their true colors, but now that he was, well, who he was, he didn't have to let it continue. He didn't need to let Ivan know that, either.

 

“Way I see it, seems I'm in your debt for the moment.” An idle observation. A favor, offered. Strings? Who knew how many strings were attached to everything. Every movement, every spoken word. The Illuminati, Adam had found, hovered around him like angry wasps, never knowing when to leave well enough alone. Viktor had failed, so now were they sending his right-hand man to finish the job?

 

“I don't need help blowing up anything, so I don't think you'd be of much use.” Adam lowers the TESLA, slowly. Warily. It's still charged, activated.

 

It startles a laugh from Ivan. “So you do have a sense of humor! I wasn't sure.” He shrugs, lips quirked, the piercing under his right eye twitching. He drops a slip of paper from his pocket, as if he doesn't notice. “If you need me, you can always call.” He winks, and...is he flirting? Adam's thrown off a little, honestly. Still prepared for the inevitable attack. But his radar doesn't say he's surrounded. There's no scream of gunfire, no sudden approach of police or bots. Nothing but the too-quiet courtyard as Ivan lightly steps up the stairs, taking them two at a time, augs tilting. Adam reaches down for the paper only when his radar says Ivan has left the city block, the red icon moving at a leisurely pace across his HUD. It's his I-link number. Adam's eyebrows narrow. He pockets it, anyway.

 

 

When he's finally torn himself away from the bookstore, he gets an unexpected call from Chikane.

“Miller wants to see you.” No greeting, straight into business.

 

“I thought Miller was in the States?” Adam is, nonetheless, already heading to Chikane's place.

 

“He's on his way back. Wants to meet you in France.” Strange. Adam is, admittedly, a little confused about that. There is a TF29 office there, sure, but wouldn't Miller want to meet in his own?

 

“Did he say why?'

 

“What am I, your fucking post-man? No, he didn't say why. He said come. So here I am, waiting for your ass.” Adam sighs.

 

“On my way.” He hangs up.

 

By the time he gets to the pad, Chikane has already been there a while – engines near cooled.

 

“Sleeping beauty sure takes his time,” Chikane points out, in irritation that Adam has since learned is probably in jest.

 

“I was on the other side of the city wall,” Adam explains. Chikane clearly doesn't care, raising an eyebrow and heading for the cockpit. They take off shortly after, in a silence that Adam has grown accustomed to.

 

Twenty minutes later, the VTOL is slowing down. Adam frowns, through the cockpit window he can tell they're not close to the TF29 headquarters in Paris. He stands up to go see what's happening. As he steps through the partition, Chikane turns to him, the joystick coming away from the dashboard in his hand.

 

Adam hones in on it, a quiet “Wha-” making it out of his lips when he realizes, suddenly, it's not the joystick. It's a taser, and Chikane is dead-eyed as he pulls the trigger, launches the barbs at Adam's abdomen where it wasn't covered by chestplate.

 

He'd been tased before (DPD training, and SWAT training, to show what it feels like and just how much it can incapacitate a criminal) but this time – it's different. Instead of his muscles locking up, lungs seizing, he just. Stops.

 

His augs shut down. Overloaded, his HUD screams as he drops to the ground, going black a moment after it displayed critical status for every system. His eyes don't see, and he is gone a moment later.

 

 

Adam wakes up. No, that's not quite right. Adam starts up. System by system. Heart, then lungs, then eyes. HUD, limbs, Sentinel RX. His body continues the motion it had started when he shut down, curling violently as if suffering the aftershocks of electricity, even though it has long since passed his system. His HUD is still panicking, reporting damage to organic systems from oxygen deprivation as the Sentinel struggles to repair it all. Damage to augs too, some fried from the shock. Weapons, mainly, particularly the TITAN ones.

 

There are hands on him, and he wants them off. Jerks away from them as they try to ease him back down, and he thinks that he may be in TF29, and the hands belong to Jen from the infirmary. Or he's in F451, and McFadden is coming to check on him. His eyes are still recalibrating, unfocused and glitching.

 

It takes him a minute longer to remember McFadden is Orlov and Orlov is dead.

 

“Agent Jensen, please calm down. You're safe.”

 

Interesting choice of words, considering how incessantly his HUD is screaming at him. He wants to shut it off, dig it out of his ears.

 

“Where--?”

 

“TF29, Prague. Chikane says he found you out, near Dvali territory. He brought you here.”

 

Is that what happened? Adam is not quite sure.

 

 

An hour later, when they finally let him out, his augs still complain. He wishes –

 

He wishes he could go to Koller to get them fixed. Supposes the headache from the screeching is a punishment for his failure. Fitting, he supposes. Koller would be infuriated to find out he's running on damaged augs and isn't getting them fixed.

 

An incoming call cuts through the din, and his HUD is too plastered in warnings to show him who is calling. He takes it.

 

“Adam?! Jesus, I've been trying to call you for the last three hours. Where have you been?” It's Alex, he realizes.

 

“Alex? I...I'm not sure, actually. I don't...remember.” The words leave a sour taste in his mouth. It's happened a few too many times in the past year.

 

“Are you okay?” Her concern is almost tangible.

 

He's not. He hasn't been anything near okay since before they brought him back from the dead. Says, “fine. My augs are...distressed. Trying to sort out something.” He frowns. What could have caused his military-grade, top-of-the-line augs to lose all control and idea of what had happened?

 

“Well. Check your email. We intercepted a call to your pilot, Chikane. You're going to want to hear it.”

 


End file.
